Nish Kumar Quotes

As a kid, there was a painting of 'Appeal to the Great Spirit' that I would see when I would get oatmeal bowls out of the cupboard. This painting, it was so real to me that it frightened me.

At 10, I heard Neil Diamond's 'Solitary Man' and it moved me so deeply I stood, frozen in place during school recess, feeling such empathy for the narrator in Diamond's masterpiece that my heart was smashed.

When I first heard that song, it was a ballad but it had a lot more. It felt like a gospel song when I first heard it and it just moved me.

I don't cry at books or movies. Ever. So imagine my shock and awe when I read 'The Time Traveler's Wife' for the second time, and I knew the ending, and I started to cry.

I remember how beautiful the Merrimac looked to me in childhood, the first true river I ever knew; it opened upon my sight and wound its way through my heart like a dream realized; its harebells, its rocks, and its rapids, are far more fixed in my memory than anything about the sea.

Lots of people I know have bootlegged tapes of performances and if they play it I will be transported back sometimes with happiness, sometimes with horror.

I've always felt that color is intrinsically personal. It evokes a tremendous amount of emotion. If there's a color you respond to, that's something you can incorporate into your home. No one can tell you it's wrong.

Every decorative piece in this house is my feeling, my choice.

For a long time, I resisted seeing 'The Sound of Music,' but when I finally did, I cried.

I have a Damien Hirst spot painting which I love. It has pride of place over my dining-room table.

The first time I heard The Beatles, I cried. It was 'Let it Be'.

'House' was such a special part of my life.

I have got pictures all around the rooms I sit in. I have got a very mad picture of a dog standing on a black thing on a piece of rope. It was drawn and painted by a Romanian poet who was under house arrest, and it is terrific.

You know this old style of American family series? Well, I sit there and cry.

Egon Schiele is my favorite painter. There's just something about art - photography, painting, music, plays - whatever you see, sometimes there's a gut reaction that's more important or more visceral than what your brain is thinking about. You can't explain that reaction. It's like what happens when you fall in love.

More and more, as I grow older, I find myself looking for inspiration in painting, illustration, videogames, and old movies.

Nostalgia is a very human trait.

I paint a bit myself. My house in Clerkenwell has a room that is done up like a big installation.

I remember when I first went to the Baltimore Museum of Art and I bought this little Moreau print in the gift shop. I took it home, and I was, like, 12 years old or something.

My office looks very empty compared with my house. The house is completely crammed full with things that Patrick and I love. It's very eclectic. There are things that have no value but which we like. We have a lot of Belgian painters; we have international painters. We have nice things; we have ugly things. I don't want that things are predictable.

Sometimes I get emotional when I'm doing 'Lonesome Valley' or 'Wildwood Rose.'

I was eating cereal on my couch when I saw the first commercial for 'The Wiz' on TV. I dropped the spoon and the tears came out of nowhere.

I got into history when I was 11 years old, and it all started with the Titanic. I'd read books in the library about it. Of course I've seen the movie, too - I don't think I've ever cried that much.

When I saw my box after that, it was even more special for me.

I'm trying to paint a picture of what I have seen and what moved me, as well as I can. That's all.